February 22, 2010

Video: “A computational model of aesthetics”

People always like to joke about Photoshop eventually adding a big red “Make My Photo Good” button, automatically figuring out what looks good & what adjustments are needed. Of course, researchers are working on just that sort of thing:

As someone who aspires to be creative, I have mixed feelings. The idea of rating images according to precomputed standards of beauty makes me think of the Robin Williams character in Dead Poets Society excoriating a textbook that rated poetry along two axes:

Excrement! That’s what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard! We’re not laying pipe! We’re talking about poetry. How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? “I like Byron, I give him a 42 but I can’t dance to it!”

And yet, I find I’m intrigued by the idea, wanting to run the algorithm on my images–if only, maybe, to have fun flouting it. I also have to admit that I’d like to see the images taken by certain of my family members (not you, hon) run through such algorithms–if only to crop in on the good stuff.
[Via Jerry Harris]